Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover
by heaeli
Summary: Abby and Gibbs' relationship has grown up over a long tradition of the broken bones of boyfriends and exes... AbbyxGibbs, friendship with complications . Set years before season one. Rated for future situations- please read warnings in each chapter.
1. Chapter 1: This is for Ms Sciuto!

(NCIS and all of its characters, places, and etc. do not belong to me, and I intend to make no profit off of these writings, which are purely for amusement. Neither do I own the song or title of "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover", and I'm making no money off of that, either.)

Author's note: Welcome to my first NCIS story. Essentially it's a series of isolated events all within the same timeline that involve Abby and Gibbs getting to know and trust each other over a series of incidents involving the men in Abby's life. This is an Abby/Gibbs friendship piece, predominantly, but not exclusively. I've tried to capture the nuances of their early relationship before they, too, decided what it was. It starts some years before the show. This first chapter is not long after Abby and Gibbs meet through work. This is not a songfic. Enjoy, and let me know what you think! Reviews will be responded to at the beginning of the next chapter I post. There will be multiple chapters per section, but at least for the time being I will post entire –sections- at a time. So you may find multi-chapter updates in the future, please be aware! -heaeli

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1. Brendan answered the door, still definitely drunk and probably still a little high. The ripped shirt he wore over stained blue boxer shorts was a gray from years of infrequent, indiscriminate washing. Even after rubbing his tousled brown hair down into something vaguely more acceptable, he didn't look like anything compared to the man in the clean coat and pants and piercing blue eyes that stood in his doorway.

The guy was a total stranger, but in the eyes in the nearly-smooth face he saw a very personal kind of hate. He couldn't tell if the guy was older, or younger and just had been through hell.

"Uh, can I… uh, help you?" Bren wanted to go back to sleep, admittedly in his pile of boozed-out women, along with his buddies, all sprawled out on his floor.

"Are you Brendan Jenesson?" The man's voice was a definite bark, that stiffened the spine of even such a civilian as Brendan Jenesson.

"Y-yeah, that's me. Look, if you're selling something, I don't want any-," Bren tried in vain to think about who else had such righteous zealousness in their eyes and was reminded vaguely of a particularly fiery Mormon making the rounds about the neighborhood yesterday.

"This is for Miss Sciuto!" The guy barked again, and swung his fist as hard as he could.

A couple explosions of pain painted Brendan Jenesson, one in a now-broken nose, followed, once he was down, by a swift kick to the groin.

"I know where you live," the man was shouting at him, and Bren managed to open his eyes long enough to peek around the bloodied nose to see the man, red-faced and spitting anger. "You even fucking touch her again- come anywhere near her, and you will wish I'd killed you this time."

Bren wasn't sure about anything except for the pain his balls were in, covered gently by his hands as a meager protection. But he seemed to make out that the guy now had a gun pointed at him. The sweat intensified around his face.

"You're a piece of shit, and Miss Scuito doesn't deserve you even stuck on the foot of her shoe. Fucking remember that."

"Who- who are you?" Bren managed, looking up into the icy blue eyes of a trained killer who only barely gave a damn about his own life.

The man looked down at idiotic man gripping his crotch gingerly. "Leroy Jethro Gibbs, NCIS," he growled at last, "You remember that name, too."

Using his foot, Gibbs levered the poor sod back into his apartment, while he whimpered in fear and pain, and the gunnery sergeant-turned-investigator closed the door almost politely, holstering his gun once again. But his eyes haunted the man long after the door had closed.

-~-

"Hey, Special Agent Jethro Gibbs," the forensic scientist called as the man in question walked into her lab in the basement. An old bruise was finishing its blossoming on her cheek, marring the eccentric beauty that he'd grown accustomed to since she'd come to work there the past year. A little less than a year, actually, his mental calendar reminded him.

As usual, she called over the steady thumping of music she had constantly playing ever since she'd found out how loud it could exactly be without the rest of the building hearing it.

"Miss Sciuto," he greeted formally, "You called me."

Abby sighed. "Please, please, please, please stop calling me 'Miss Sciuto'?" She pleaded, knowing full well that this quirky, strange, angry man would do no such thing, just as he'd failed to do every single day since he'd met her, because she made him uncomfortable.

Blue eyes watched her levelly, holding a coffee in his hands, a little less like a crutch for consciousness and a little more like a liferaft in a strange, alien ocean of indecipherable music.

Green eyes watched back, at the indecipherable island of silence in the swirling sea of music. It was odd, how he made a silence around him. Eyes blank, or eyes angry, either way, he said nothing. It was so rare to see a man every day in her presence, but to have never once seen him smile.

Too much silence- Abby reached over and took his coffee from surprised, unresisting fingers, and took a big swig, followed by a big, toothy smile.

"Wha- hey!" He demanded, thinking about snatching it back angrily, but he was brought up short not by her sparkling eyes, but by the sharp bruise under them, in the vague shape of Brendan Jenesson's knuckles.

"It's nice of you to bring me something with caffeine in exchange for evidence, Special Agent Gibbs," she said happily, giving him back the coffee, which now had a bright red kiss around the edges of the lid. "We should make it a habit." Then, oblivious to the anger and confusion of the Special Agent, she sniffed. "Maybe something sweeter though. That's disgusting."

Gibbs watched her like she was a little dangerous, a little crazy, and a little vulnerable. She didn't disabuse him of the notion.

-~-

At the end of the day that same day, when her detection of some unexpected chemicals on the shirt of the victim had wrapped up a case very neatly, Gibbs encountered her again unexpectedly. She was in the car park, walking toward her hearse.

Unlike in the lab, her face was fallen and hung low, looking down at her feet. Concerned, Gibbs fell into step beside her. Abby was so deep in thought, she didn't notice for a few moments.

In fact, she didn't seem to notice she was about to walk into a car. Making a split-second decision, he put out his hand, and touched her shoulder.

Abby flinched.

Gibbs flinched inwardly at her flinch, and quickly removed his hand.

"Oh! Special Agent-."

"Gibbs."

Abby looked confused. "I know your name-."

"Gibbs. It's just Gibbs."

She nodded, confusion not completely fading. "Okay..."

A pause.

"I heard what you did… for me- to Bren."

She was twisting her fingers together in a sickeningly complex knot, only to untangle them to bang her knuckles together like she was worrying down an invisible sheet of paper. He watched, more than half-fascinated, as he did with mostly everything about this strange, strange creature. Gibbs hadn't been sure something like the Navy could accept someone like Abby Sciuto and keep her in her own, pure, if admittedly bizarre, form.

He wasn't sure he even wanted someone so bright and colorful in his own life again. It was a little painful to look at her smile for too long. He liked NCIS well enough because everyone was focused. And with their work, it meant they didn't smile too much.

Abby was waiting for an answer. Gibbs sighed and shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah."

Now she watched him closely, and then nodded, possibly liking what she saw- he didn't know.

"Does this mean you'll stop calling me 'Miss Sciuto' now?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Sure."

She seemed surprised. "You'll call me 'Abby'?"

"If that's what you want."

"Do you think, if I invited you to a thank-you dinner out, it would be less of an awkward evening if we both just agreed to not actually have a meal together and went home?" She briefly imagined a dinner that involved his awkward silence, half the angry man, half the awkward gunnery sergeant,and her incessant chatter to cover all the spaces.

Gibbs was blank-faced. "Why would you invite me out to dinner?"

Abby sighed impatiently. "For smacking around Brendan Jenesson. Even though it's a little weird that you figured out who he was and where he lives. Hinky, even."

"Hinky?"

She sighed again. "You want some dinner, or not?"

Gibbs looked at her for a minute, then ran his mind over his original plans- sitting at home, sanding the beams of his boat, drinking and thinking about his miseries. The old, comfortable, reliable routine.

"You don't have to look at me like I'm going to _bite_ you, Gibbs. That's more my friend Andre's style."

Hearing that tidbit sent a low-level shock humming through his system.

"Okay," his mouth said. _Run, _said his brain.

Abby's unhappy face spread into a surprised, genuine smile. Then his brain agreed with his mouth.

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Please review! This is my first chapter, and the most unpolished (I have four sections written currently).  
Next up is Chapter 2. During the biggest storm of the season, Abby calls Gibbs from a phone booth in the middle of the night.


	2. Chapter 2 pt 1: Abby in the Phone Booth

A/N: Sorry for such a length between updates! That's why I'm trying to make each chapter a complete story- I'm a senior in college who writes this for fun, but this comes after schoolwork, working, and looking for employment after I graduate. : ). **Don't forget- there are two chapters in this section, and they are both posted! So don't forget to hit the next button when you're done!** And please review! I don't own anything concerning NCIS, this is written for fun, not for profit.

It was 3:21 in the morning when Leroy Jethro Gibbs was aroused from a very sound sleep to the sound of his phone ringing insistently in his ear. Using one eye, he managed to peer at the clock, and, past it, the window. It was absolutely pouring out, the tree branches outside the window illuminated frequently by lightning and mind-splitting thunder.

He managed to grab the phone one ring before it was set to hang up. "Yeah, Gibbs," he muttered darkly into an equally bleak darkness. Thunder rang out. It matched the thunder that hurdled through the phone connection. There was silence. "…Is anyone there?"

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"Oh! …Gibbs?"

His eyebrows furrowed. The voice was unexpected, but familier.

"I'm sorry to call and bother you, but I don't have anyone else to call-."

"Abby Sciuto?"

"Yeah, and I'm-," thunder rolled again, cutting off her voice for a long moment, "-so I guess you could say I'm currently living in this phone booth?"

Gibbs could almost see her in the small glass booth, knocking her knuckles together worriedly, and sat up. "Where are you?"

She told him.

"_There?_ At this time of night?" He rubbed his face, forcing himself to focus.

"I live near here- used to? I don't know, he changed the locks when he found out I knew about him fucking my best friend, Gibbs."

_Are you serious?_ He wanted to ask, preferably in a demanding tone.

"Okay. Look, I want you to stay there, Abby, and I'll come get you."

"Okay. Th-hanks, Gibbs."

"Don't open that door for anybody but me, you hear me?" He was already pulling on some pants- the work pants he'd discarded in the nearby hamper last night, leaving his old Navy sleep shirt on.

"I won't," she promised, and he hung up the phone.

-------

Abby hid quite admirably in the shadows until the car pulled up, attempting to wring out her ponytails, until she gave up and just took them out. Soaked was a word she would have used a few hours ago- she was now more along the lines of completely waterlogged.

Gibbs rolled down his window and flicked the light on so she could see it was him. He gestured madly for her to come get in the car until she saw him, and took off like a bat out of hell from the leaky, ceilingless phone booth.

He handed her a towel without a word the moment she clambered into the car, as he simultaneously took off with a screech of the tires on wet pavement. Abby was soaking wet everywhere, still in her -now thoroughly soaked- party clothes, with way too much fishnet and black and silver studwork to give Jethro Gibbs any peace of mind.

Abby's strange style, of dress and of life, was like a strange flare, something he was fascinated by. He'd never heard of most of the strange fetishes and crazy music and beliefs she dabbled in until he'd met her. A lot of it sounded really deviant or macabre, but then she was just so full of life in this way he'd rarely seen before.

Not every suicidal tendency was weaned out of him, not by a long shot. His own unsteady footing with life made her vibrance helplessly fascinating, like a moth to a flickering flame.

Something _thwack_ed off of the windshield. Abby was trying to dry out her hair and the numerous impossible folds and fine fabrics, stripping off what wasn't vital for decency and what couldn't be saved. Gibbs cranked up the heat until the windows started to fog, but she still shivered like crazy. There was a lot he wanted to demand- what was she doing, living around here with some moron, anyway? Why was she coming in at three in the morning when she had work the next day- putting in overtime to get another agent's case done? Where was her car? Why was he the one she thought to call? He'd barely known her for a year and a half.

More chunks of ice hit the windshield. Abby paused, her head buried under the towel. "Gibbs, was that-?"

Hail suddenly pounded down on the windshield, accompanied by suddenly howling winds and sheets of rain, as if the true fury of the storm was suddenly turned on by a switch.

This wasn't any good- he couldn't even see the front of his car. Signalling, he pulled over to about where he thought the side of the road was. They sat in silence. Gibbs knew if he started demanding knowing things about her life, then that would be it- he would be involved in this strange woman's life until she chose to let him go.

Abby shivered, using the wet towel as a blanket. "Thanks for picking me up, Gibbs," she said into pounding wind, rain, hail, and thunder. Her accompanying sniffle rivaled all of them.

Spunky, unselfconscious, full of life and happy despite the most discouraging of personal circumstances- maybe he was afraid of her because she reminded him of the best qualities of another woman he still missed so much it hurt like hellfire.

Gibbs didn't want to think about it.

"We'll wait until the hail dies down," he said abruptly. "Where can I take you?"

"Uhm…" Abby thought earnestly for a moment. "Do you know any all-night diners on a bus line that would get me to NCIS in the morning?"

Gibbs tried to look out the window to diffuse his frustration at this woman who could not seem to get it all together today, but he couldn't see past the rain, and he didn't want to stare at the rain. So, gripping the steering wheel, he turned angrily to the woman beside him.

"You mean to tell me you don't have _anywhere_ to go, Abby?"

She started to knock her knuckles together, unable to look at him. She missed clinking the knuckles together more often than not, he noticed, because she was shuddering with cold. Her breath came in small, frozen little gasps.

"Not anywhere… dry," she offered at last.

"No friends? Family?" He pressed.

Abby's lips trembled, and, pitifully, she shook her head, hanging it. "My family's not from around here. And I don't know anyone who's… going to answer their phone at three in the morning. For me."

Gibbs tried to think. "I thought you said you had a friend-."

"She's in my apartment-," Abby cut him off, stumbling miserably through the sentence to arrive at the end, "in my bed- my side of the bed, with my boyfriend- my roommate… yeah."

Abby turned away from him, and faced her window. In the reflection, he saw her wipe a tear away with the soaked towel, before she shivered again and pulled it around her. Her lips held a steady, stubborn line.

"What about your car- that hearse?" The last word bit a little harder off his lips than he intended.

"I had to sell it," she said as if he was using wild dogs to pull the information from her, "about a month ago."

Gibbs watched her for a minute, then shook his head, and hooked his sleep shirt over his head. It took her a moment to notice that he was now bare-chested, holding it out to her. She half-turned, looking at him questioningly. She'd missed a tear on one cheek.

"You're freezing," he noted, "It's 'cause you're soaked."'

Abby blinked and took the shirt, holding it away from her wet body.

"Just put on the shirt," Gibbs said, exasperatedly.

"…Are you going to cover your eyes?" She demanded, as if it was the most natural idea in the world. Then, the next thing he knew, she was holding the wet towel out to him. "Put this over your head."

"What?"

"Put it over your head- so I can change without you peeking."

Gibbs looked vaguely affronted, but she cut him a look that could fry a chicken. He put the towel on his head. It was as damp against his skin as it had promised to be, and smelled like rain, his laundry detergent, and her- an earthy, spicy smell, only very slightly tempered by a flower.

From his vantage point under the towel- he would have closed his eyes if she'd trusted him, but now that she'd made her own arrangements for her modesty, he felt little compunction with breaking them if he could do it without cheating- he caught a glimpse of her back, with a large black cross on the small of her back. Then his shirt slipped over it, and she turned and yanked the towel off his head.

Her shirt, undershirt made of fishnet, and bra were laying on the floor of his car, along with her drenched tights, leaving her pale legs exposed with only her damp black skirt on. It didn't reach her knees, but she pulled on it modestly as if she could make it stretch.

"Where are you going to drop me?" Abby asked as he pulled away into the lessening hail, the moment Gibbs could see a little of the road again.

"Not dropping you anywhere." Was all he said in reply. Abby snuck a look at his shirtless self and his sleep-tousled hair. She caught him rubbing his eyes with one hand, the other on the steering wheel. "It's my day off tomorrow. I'm going home and going to sleep."

"Well, I-."

"I've got a guest bedroom, Abbs."

_Abbs,_ she thought with her first smile of the evening. She liked it. Gibbs seemed unconscious of the change.

"I don't want to be a burd-."

"You'll sleep in the guest bedroom, Abbs."

_Abbs,_ she thought again with another small smile, followed by a sniffle that, embarrassingly, was not due to the cold. Kindness after a boatload of misery was always what got her in the end, more than the unkindnesses in the world themselves.

Gibbs just drove in companionable silence as she tried and failed to stifle her tears and sniffs, for which she was grateful.

--------

Not sure what else to do, Abby followed Gibbs like a little lost puppy while he set up the guest bedroom- to the hall closet to get fresh pillows, to the basement to get his spare blanket.

"Nice boat." She meant it sincerely, but it was obvious that she didn't want to actually ask about it. He nodded, accepting the compliment. It also acknowledged the latent awkwardness of exposing her to the intimate situation of being in his house, but yet to the strangeness of not wanting to expose himself and his life stories to her.

"Thanks." She followed him back upstairs, up to the guest room where he deposited the blanket and made up the bed. He tossed her one side of the sheets and she pulled corners over the ends without him having to say anything.

"Look," Gibbs told her when he was done, "I'll go find something of mine for you to wear to bed. Go poke around the kitchen and find something to eat- whatever you want."

"Okay," Abby nodded vigorously, knocking her knuckles together again at the prospect of rooting around his kitchen.

"Set the coffee pot to time delay when you're down there, too." He was already turning out of the room. Abby scurried after him.

By the time Gibbs got back downstairs, carrying his dubious offerings of another clean shirt like the one she wore- _his other sleep shirt_- and a pair of boxer shorts- _was_ _that awkward, even if they were clean?_, Abby was munching on toast with butter and jam. Next to her elbow was a glass of orange juice.

"When you're done with that, put these on and give me your wet clothes," he instructed, then watched as she sucked down the orange juice and toast in record time before she snatched the clothes and went into the little bathroom at the end of the hall.

Gibbs went and put her dishes in the sink.

Abby came back out for inspection. She'd braided her wet hair so it fell down her back in a way he hadn't seen before –or since that day- in a single plait down her back. She'd washed off all of her streaked makeup, leaving her face blank and pale, but pretty in a way that was more than a little striking to him.

"Will they fit?" He asked over his shoulder. _Is it weird to be wearing my boxers?_

"Yeah, they're good," she affirmed. "Thanks." Looking around awkwardly, "Do you, uh, have a toothbrush? Like a spare one from the dentist, or something? I really don't like not being able to brush my teeth…"

"Can you skip it for one night?"

Abby blushed a little. "I guess. I just don't want any cavities." Blushing a little more as Gibbs looked on, amused, out of the corner of his eye, she moved toward the stairs as fast as politeness would allow. "Thanks for everything- I'll just… turn in now, okay?"

Gibbs remembered something, and went to the cabinet by the downstairs bathroom. "Hold it, Abbs."

It was the nickname more than the order that did it. Abby paused.

Gibbs fished out a bright green toothbrush, still in its original packaging, and walked it over to her. Abby took it, and scrutinized it closely, looking up with humor in her green-blue eyes.

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Gibbs? Someone was a big boy for getting his teeth cleaned!"

Gibbs felt a smile rise in a return. "Yeah, I wondered about that, too."

-------

Gibbs looked in on her before he went to bed. Abby was already asleep, tangled up in the blankets like she'd belonged in his guest bedroom for years. She sighed in her sleep.

Somewhere else, her best friend was screwing her boyfriend in Abby's own bed. He found his fist curling up in anger against the doorframe. The light from the lightning outside illuminated all of the mature lines in her face.

He couldn't just look at her like a girl to protect when she looked like that.

She was a woman to be cherished, loved well. Better than these assholes managed to do, whatever meager feelings they managed to scrape up to match her boundless love for just about anyone she took into her heart.

Jethro Gibbs wasn't any good at cherishing people, not anymore. Not since the two people he loved most in the world were taken from him, and the series of lovers and wives. Not when everything was revealed to be violent and bleak in the world.

But Abby- didn't see things like that. And one Leroy Jethro Gibbs could almost look through her eyes and see the world in vibrant color like he used to- the vibrant color like Shannon's luxurious red hair.

So maybe he couldn't be the one to love Abby the way she needed, the way she deserved. But he could do a hell of a better job than these idiots she seemed to attract.

Maybe he could look after her until she could get someone she could really count on to love her. It seemed like he was most of the way there, anyway. Even his lovers didn't stay at his house, not the whole night. Not to sleep peacefully.

"Don't cry," Abby said clearly in her sleep- he jumped until he realized her eyes were closed. Then she tucked her thumb under her chin and flicked it out, and signed something else with her hand.

Gibbs shook his head at himself with a rueful smile for watching her sleep, and headed off to bed himself, closing the door as noiselessly as possible.


	3. Chapter 2 pt 2:Delivery for Jason Avery

**PLEASE NOTE: This is the second part of the second section- please hit the 'previous' button to access the first half of this section! Thank you!**

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**

Abby shuffled her feet awkwardly, cast her gaze around, and smacked her knuckles together, everything she could think of to show exactly how nervous she was, as they stood on her front apartment doorstep in the grey morning.

"_I'll give you the money if you don't have it," Gibbs had told her gruffly over coffee that morning. "You're getting your own damn apartment."_

"_I-I've got money, Gibbs! You don't have to worry about me-."_

"_I really don't want to have to pick you up off a street corner again, Abbs."_

_There was that nickname again. It had about killed her with happiness in her gut, standing there in his pajamas, drinking his deliciously strong home brew out of one of his well-worn navy mugs, grey light streaming in the windows._

"Mr. Avery?" Back in the present, Gibbs was buzzing the apartment.

There was a crackle. Abby held her breath. Finally, "Yeah, it's Jason."

Gibbs laid a finger over his lips as a warning to her. "Package for you, sir."

Jason groaned. Abby could tell exactly when he paused to rub his hands over his face. She worried the edges of the box that she picked up from by her feet- one of the ones Gibbs had stashed in his basement. He seemed to be surprised when she said just about all her stuff would fit into that box. Gibbs had a box, too.

"Hang on. I'll buzz you in. Bring it up to 313."

"Thank you, sir."

The door buzzed. Gibbs put his shoulder into the sticky door, and they stumbled into the small excuse for a lobby, while Abby led the way up to the apartment.

They'd decided not to use her keys to get into the building, so that Jason would open the door for them under their guise. Gibbs caught her eye as she slid against the wall next to the door so as to be unseen. Abby gave him a nervous little smile.

He cocked his head and returned the smile, just a little one, but as reassuring as he could make it. Actual smiling felt a little weird, because smirking, as she'd said once, didn't count.

Abby's smile broadened a little bit, relief at having someone on her side coloring her eyes. Gibbs straightened up a little, and knocked firmly on the door.

After a little shuffling behind the door, Jason peeked out, then opened the door wider as he removed the chain. "Sorry, man. Psycho ex, you know how it is, gotta be care-."

Gibbs knee hooked expertly into his groin as Abby stepped into view. Jason dropped like a stone. "Yeah," Gibbs replied to the man, who was whimpering loudly, "I know how it is."

"Asshole!" Abby was shouting before Gibbs could catch her, kicking at Jason as he tried to curl away from her, shielding his bruised parts from her. "Fucker! I hate you! I wish I'd never met you! You-,"

"Abby!" Gibbs shouted, grabbing her from behind by her arms and pulling her away from the downed man. "Get yourself under control. Go get your stuff."

There was movement at the door to the bedroom, and a barely dressed knockout of a woman with platinum-dyed blonde hair emerged, all legs and confusion. "Jason?" She paled. "Abby!"

"And you!" Abby screamed, "You're a damn whore!" It took several firm shakes from Gibbs until she stopped shouting at the other woman, who by now had seen Jason's state and was edging along the wall.

"Why don't you just come sit in this chair over here," Gibbs said to the leggy blonde as reasonably as he could manage, knowing his voice was deadly, indicating a chair nearby him and Jason with a nod of his head. "Abby's just here to get her stuff."

The woman nodded shakily, eyes darting between Jason and Abby, who had tears streaming down her face and a look of fury in her eyes, and complied.

Gibbs turned Abby around in his grip, still keeping an eye on the man on the floor and the woman in the chair. Meeting her eyes firmly, he hooked some stray hairs behind her ear. "Go get your stuff, Abbs. And just that. Okay?"

Abby's lips trembled, but she nodded.

"Good girl." He released her.

Jason made a reach for Abby's ankle as she walked by with her oversized box, but Gibbs lashed his leg out like a snake before she could even react. There was a crack and a small scream from the man as Gibbs' shoe made contact with his skin and bone. Abby faltered for a second, but then disappeared into the bedroom.

They didn't even have to use the extra box Gibbs brought. Abby came out a little bit later with all her meager possessions in the world, and they left as quietly as they'd come- quieter, since Jason Avery seemed to know well enough to not make another grab for Abby.

Once they were driving away in his car, Abby pulled her legs up to her chest and sat hunched over in the seat, the buckled seatbelt the only formality toward vehicular safety.

"Abbs," he started.

"I know," she said, her voice sounding strained. She was still wearing his clothes- his shirt and a pair of his old sweatpants, since her delicate clothes had been ruined by a long time in the rain the night before, and had shrunk considerably, as he'd discovered when he'd taken the laundry out of the dryer that morning. "You don't have to say it. He was a total jerk."

"We're going to go home, and you're going back to bed," he directed her. "When you get up again, we'll look at apartment listings."

Abby managed a little, bleak smile. "Yes, boss." After a moment's contemplation, she added, "I guess it would be a lot more difficult if my name had actually been on the lease, huh?"

Gibbs rolled his eyes at his precariously-housed forensic scientist.

Abby smiled a little bigger at his discomfort.

"From now on you're living in your own place with your name as the one on the lease, Abby, or I'll know why. No more living off these deadbeats."

Abby propped her cheek on her knee and gazed at him. "Yes, boss."

"And knock that off."

The mirth entered her eyes again with that smile. Gibbs was satisfied. Abby turned her head again to follow the patterns of drying water on the pavement.

"Yes, boss."

"_Abby._"

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Endnote: Thanks to Nonny for your helpful critique of my wording. I'd like to say I'll go right back and fix it, but I don't have the time right now. Nonetheless, it's awesome of you to speak up! To Jo R., Amy's Den, Pandora of Ithilien (I don't know what exactly your name refers to, but it sounds cool), STLFAN, ascifigirl, MarliGibbs, and Epic LoVer (and Nonny again)- thanks for your positive reviews. It seriously makes me really happy when I check my reviews and find a new one. It's really great. Thanks so much!


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